I'm not a great one for keeping things; I don't like clutter and I'm regularly accused of being over-zealous when it comes to the tip run. One of the last ways I'd have thought to describe myself is a 'collector'.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Collections 1 - Stamps
I'm not a great one for keeping things; I don't like clutter and I'm regularly accused of being over-zealous when it comes to the tip run. One of the last ways I'd have thought to describe myself is a 'collector'.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Hairdressing and chairs
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Playing with words
My friend Andy writes on his blog of the delights of playing in the Brechfa Forest. Always alert to the use of language, I sense he is echoing a trend amongst outdoor thrill seekers who refer to their exploits as 'play'. I have used the phrase myself: 'playing in the rapids' is commonplace jargon of kayakers.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Bleaklow
Bleaklow is not a good place to walk alone. It's one of the darkest sections of the Pennine Way, a huge seething bog, a misty featureless plateau, a place for lost souls. Or so the reputation goes.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Stanage Edge
Monday, April 13, 2009
Books I'm reading
Are you interested? Well some of you might be, so here's a selection of what I've been reading recently.
It's not easy being green...
I could do a whole spoof here about the effects of rising water temperatures on the bio-sphere... the need for a sustainable aquatic environment... the imminent and very real threat to population levels (in one week our global population has dropped by 33%)... the impact of over consumption of rich food stuffs... the age of the stupid; oh why didn't we do something when we could?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Tywi
Friday, April 10, 2009
Teifi
The Teifi estuary is an inauspicious start to the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Poppit Sands is little more than a scruffy jumble of car parks, a concrete lifeboat station and a wooden cafe that seems never to be open. The ‘sands’ themselves are grey, darkened by shale and tidal mud, chief collection point for the flotsam of Cardigan Bay.
And beyond, up the steep lane that leads to the Youth Hostel (like a three-bed-semi with picture windows) it is little better. The farmyards here are littered with tyres and plastic bags, the hill cottages largely colonised by putative eco settlers, their ubiquitous wind-catchers flapping on every gatepost. Looking to the north, the view of Cardigan Island is sullied by the hotels and caravan sites that pepper the shoreline.
I have never liked it much here. There is not enough space for the river to end and the sea to begin; it is more of a harbour's mouth than an estuary proper. The Teifi has carved a deep channel between silted banks, allowing boats to sail up river at virtually all tides. This explains why Cardigan, despite giving its name to the great sweep of Mid-Wales coastline, is actually four miles inland.
In fact the river is more impressive by the town, above which it flattens into an expanse of wetland, home to otters, warblers, herons and just recently, a bittern. Upstream is the beautiful Cilgerran gorge, then Cenarth with its water mill (I once saw a seal here); further up again, the fairy glen of Henllan falls, then the seemingly innocuous weir that has taken the lives of far too many canoeists. Some years ago I helped raise the money to build the canoe centre at Llandysul; soon afterwards, the 'safe' slalom course I had paddeld dozens of times would take another life.
As we walked down the Teifi estuary this week I urged Daniel on. I wanted to put it behind us, to reach Cemaes Head and watch the Kestrels on Pen yr Afr before the light began to fade. We had half planned to camp out, but it is difficult here. The cliffs are high and sloping, the path traverses at half height and there are few places to sit never mind pitch a tent. It began to rain.
We pressed on towards Ceibwr, climbing the highest section of the entire Coast Path and passing the ravens nests at Foel Hendre as the wind licked up a downpour. When we reached the car at Trewyddel it was almost dark. We headed for home, the last of the sunlight hidden by the thickening clouds.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Losing the plot
There is little that gives philosophy and philosophers more of a bad name than the over-intellectualising of the religious apologists. If Madeleine Bunting seriously believes that the millions of practising Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. base their belief on 'faith through practice' then she really is too far removed from reality.
Why is it that the philosophers and commentators who defend religion use straight forward 'plain speaking' reason in virtually every other part of their life, except when it comes to the argument they are losing? This 'faith through practice' hypothesis, much like the intelligent design theories, is little more than intellectual succour for an argument they have lost. I don't believe for a moment that if they could use common sense, rational, evidential arguments in support of their beliefs that they wouldn't advance them before this sort of weasel worded nonsense.
Of course, almost all believers would accept that God as an 'old man with a white beard' is bit of a ridiculous notion, but surely that doesn't mean the vast majority of religious adherents don't still worship God as (broadly) an all powerful, all seeing, caring, vengeful being. The faith of these people has next to nothing to do with 'belief through practice', still less to do with intelligent design, or the borders between belief and non-belief. They don't use these notions, neither do their priests, nor is it the basis of any part of their faith.
I'm sure that someone will say I'm missing their point. But my counter would be that it is the likes of Bunting and Swinburne who are missing the real point. If Madeleine Bunting wants to spend her time thinking about such intellectual intricacies I guess that's her choice, but frankly, who cares - the general church going public certainly don't. To use my most basic of tests; if anyone thinks my Mum (and millions like her round the world) is motivated to go to church each Sunday because of this sort of shifty intellectualising, then they have seriously lost the plot.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Always different, always the same
Running on my usual route these last two days I noticed the hedgerows are full of yellow and and white flowers; gorse, broom; saxifrage, daisies, dandelions, primroses, blackthorn, daffodils,narcissus. It's obvious really but I'm not sure I'd quite noticed it before. Even the Brimstone butterfly that I passed was yellow. There must be reason why April is a month of yellow and white; by June the lanes will be full of pinks and blues.